Part I The Theory of Historical Knowledge The Main Trends in the Theory of Historical Knowledge From the epistemological point of view, scientific knowledge is characterized by its systematic unity. Like our consciousness, which is distinguished by unity, science must also be

No matter how unpleasant it may seem to any of us, but a new young doctrine, wishing to pave the way for new great principles, must first of all turn to the weapon of criticism in relation to everything old.

Retreating into the depths of Time, we came to the understanding that those who kept the secret knowledge inherited from the gods must have been present. Despite the fact that the gods can be considered both aliens and representatives of a more developed human tribe, who fell into the wild tribes and taught them everything they knew and knew. And one of the first cognitions during these contacts was the knowledge of God, that is, the veneration of the highest rational power. It can be said that believers of all religions known to us (with a few exceptions) agree on the following points: a) there is a certain Supreme Deity, b) a person depends on invisible good and evil forces, but has a will, c) human behavior to one degree or another must be subject to the commandments established by God, which are protected by a religious cult, d) following the will of the Lord, a person can achieve the absolute (happiness / bliss). At the same time, different religions offer us their hypotheses of prospects: an endless cycle of reincarnations; detachment in Nirvana; Last Judgment and Eternal Life; Heaven and hell. We may not share any of these hypotheses, or change the faith at our discretion, but at some point we all understand that we are dependent on the Lord God and conform our lives to his installation commandments.

Since we cannot look into more ancient times, in order to reveal the theme of the very first cult ministers who were the forerunners of the servants of the religion of Christ, we will have to turn to the more or less well-known history of the Ancient World.

Speaking about the ancient kingdoms, it should be noted that the ancient Egyptian civilization was formed in the XXVIII-XXIII centuries. BC e. In a series of local wars, one can recall the one that took place in the 17th century. BC e., when the Egyptian lands are conquered by the Hyksos (Egyptian “hikhaset” - “shepherd kings”, also: “foreign kings”, “foreign kings”). The invaders were nomadic pastoral tribes. Having delved into the Bible, created after many, many centuries, we will find a rather strange coincidence: Jesus Christ is called not only the king of the Jews, but also a shepherd, moreover, the shepherd of human souls. The Hyksos, having crowned one of their commanders, founded the XV dynasty; reigned for some time in the North, simultaneously with the Theban dynasty, which reigned in the South. And such a coincidence: the supreme Egyptian god Aton (Ra, or Aton-Ra) was drawn with a solar disk on his head; the same tradition will appear in Christian icon painting. Before Aton-Ra, representing monotheism, defeated the old beliefs, there was the Amon-Ra system - a system representing polytheism. Russian historian

V. Vodovozov in the “Book for Primary Reading”, published in 1878 and intended “for the self-education of ordinary people”, wrote: “The most important caste, controlling everything, was the caste of spiritual or priests. They ordered the king (i.e. pharaoh) how to live and what to do ... The supreme deity of the Egyptians was Amun. Four deities united in his face: the substance of which everything in the world consists, - Goddess No; a spirit that animates matter, or a force that causes it to form, change, act, - god Neph; infinite space occupied by matter, - goddess pasht; infinite time, which seems to us with constant changes in matter - god Sebek. Everything that exists in the world, according to the teachings of the Egyptians, comes from substances through the action of the invisible strength, occupies space and changes in time, and all this is mysteriously united in the fourfold being, Amun. The consonance of Amun/Amun and Amen is too clear to deny a possible installation certain name).

It should also be said that the most ancient beliefs of the Egyptians are based on even more ancient cosmogonic myths, which can only be restored bit by bit, according to the fragmentary and chaotic fragments contained in later sources, as well as the iconography of the gods in later images. Cosmogonic myths are the myths of the ancients about the structure of the universe; are a synthesis of the primitive sciences. I will add that ancient Russian cosmism is rooted in ancient Aryan traditions common to many modern Eurasian peoples. Experts know that what the constituent parts of Egyptian beliefs carry, such as: Theban cosmogony, Memphis cosmogony, Germopol cosmogony, Heliopolis cosmogony, through the centuries turned out to be invested in biblical texts. Whereas the ancient kingdom of Israel, according to the Bible, was founded in the 11th century BC. e. King Saul (Shaul).

One of the leading civilizations of antiquity, Ancient Rome, which got its name from the main city of Roma, in turn named after the legendary founder Romu-la, was known in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e.; and its heyday came at a later time. Here, on the territory of the Roman Empire, in the 1st century AD, the religion of Christianity was born. The overthrow of the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, by the German leader Odoacer on September 4, 476 is considered the date of the fall of the Roman Empire. And another curious nuance: Ancient Rome at the time of its fall in the 5th century. n. e. already approached typography; paper, printing ink, prints and seals were invented, typesetting was developed. In the lyceums of Ancient Rome, wooden cassettes were used to teach literacy, into which metal letters with letters were inserted. It was necessary to take a small step: to replace the existing letters with mirror ones, anoint them with printing ink and press them to paper, and a revolution in science would have taken place in the ancient world. These possibilities in governing the state would certainly have extended the existence of Rome for centuries or millennia and would not have allowed it to collapse under the onslaught of the Germanic tribes. Rome fell, and printing arose a thousand years later, in 1445 in ... Germany. Amazing laws of development of History; it turns out that the illiterate Germans wrested from the educated Romans a chance to prolong the existence of the empire and only after a thousand years did they see the light themselves.

But it is believed that at that time the best minds of earthly civilization were gathered in Rome, which, with more favorable opportunities, could create printing in the 5th century. It happened exactly as Adolf Hitler put it: “In a difficult struggle, when the fate of people and nations is being decided, it will not be the one who knows less, but the one who is weaker and who does not know how to draw practical conclusions even from the little that he knows that will be defeated.”

From the history of the Ancient World, we know that the most God-fearing and religious people were the ancient Egyptians. The unity of Egypt was embodied through the power of the pharaohs; the pharaoh was the head of the cults of all the gods of Egypt and was himself deified. All Egyptian rulers called themselves the sons of the sun god Ra. Majestic tombs - pyramids - were built for them.

In the formation of an advanced Egyptian society, in the development of an amazing culture, the keepers of sacred traditions - the priests - played a positive role. Priests - these are, first of all, clergymen, revered as intermediaries in the communication of people with the world of gods and spirits. The name itself comes from the Old Slavonic "zhrti" - "to sacrifice."

Egyptologists who study the priesthood of Ancient Egypt agree that it was the priests who played the main role in the formation and prosperity of the state and the development of the spiritual health of the nation. At the same time, the priests were not only the keepers of sacred secrets, doctors and magicians, but also secular administrators. From the biography of the high priest of the era of Ramesses the Great, it is known that his training began at the age of four, and ended at twenty. Priests of the highest ranks were awarded the title Ur, which meant "high", "exalted". All priests were divided into separate groups; for example, there were groups of Per Neter - "servants of the temple", Kher Cheb - scribes and keepers of sacred books, who were also revered as keepers of the Words of Power and were responsible for their correct pronunciation. Under Words of Power some sacred words are meant, which have special abilities, and therefore are hidden from the laity. Meanwhile, there is a hypothesis according to which a person could control the natural elements and perform miracles with the help of magic spells or even individual words. And that in ancient times the gods made megalithic constructions, as well as flew on unusual objects (imprinted in ancient drawings, including those of the ancient Egyptians) precisely with the help of certain magic words. It is not strange at all that the Bible begins like this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God…” It can be assumed that the secret of ancient spells is kept in runes, and then the assumption becomes quite real that some of the deciphered runes became the property of scientists of the Third Reich, who worked within the framework of projects that were super unique for their time.

But isn’t the energy of the Words of Power sealed, say, in Taoist symbols (the most famous are yin and yang), preserved in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, can’t they carry the same functions as the Aryan runes? What does modern science know about esoteric Taoist writings? ... and about the symbolism of combined trigrams, each of the stripes and interrupted lines of which has its own sacred meaning? In this connection, a rhetorical question arises: what kind of knowledge was discovered by scientists from the Ahnenerbe, who visited with expeditions in areas where Taoism is practiced; or who visited the mysterious Tibet more than once?

But then another reasonable question arises: what is written on the monuments of Ancient Egypt, from those symbols that cannot be deciphered by modern scientists? And aren't all these writings more than just writing?!

Perhaps, having remarkable knowledge, the Egyptian priests included some Words of Power in Kekh (“address to God”) - prayers, which they uttered and which then sounded from the lips of ordinary Egyptians. From this comes the understanding that prayer is not a traditional, true "find" of Christianity, as one might assume due to the fact that for believing Christians their religion prevails over all other beliefs, and therefore the truth of its fundamental principle seems almost undeniable.

Due to the fact that prayers, undoubtedly, have an energy power beyond the understanding of our science, and regardless of what language they sound in, it can be assumed that now it is not so much the words that are of paramount importance as the Faith with which they are pronounced, and that those to whom they are intended - the mysterious forces of the invisible world (gods and spirits) - perceive the energy of what is said.

The priests of Ancient Egypt began their day with a prayer; in an ancient Egyptian temple, chants were also heard during temple prayers. This became a tradition much later in the Christian church.

“To serve God, one must be clean,” said the commandment in the time of the pharaohs. According to tradition, all the servants of the temples were required to perform four ablutions a day: in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at midnight. At the same time, one of the priests was obliged to sprinkle the people entering the temple with water. This was subsequently “invented” by the Jewish hermit John, known to us by his nickname the Baptist. So neither baptism with the waters of the Jordan, nor baptism in the temple is not a primordially Christian tradition, but a tradition stretching back centuries.

Among the priests were seers revered by all; astrologers and astronomers (the priests of Mer Unnut - "masters of the hours", were astronomers-observers; the priests of Amiya Unnut - "interpreters of the hours", dealt with agrarian astronomy, studied the effect of the luminaries on people's well-being, etc.). A special role was played by the priests of Ur Heku - "possessors of sacred powers"; they were the Keepers of the Divine Power, they could “sanctify” objects (which is given to do by their colleagues - Christian priests), help the sick in healing. By the way: medicine in ancient Egypt was not a profession, but a sacred science. According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians were the most healthy people of the ancient world, and their healing art knew no equal.

Among the various castes serving the priests is the caste of lay servants Sau - "caretakers" who play the role of guards. They became the forerunner of the knights, the warriors of Christ, as the special forces of the Lord.

Priesthood is associated with the emergence of religion. Among other peoples (Aboriginal Australians, Papuans, Fuegians, the peoples of the Arctic, etc.), religious and magical rites were performed mainly by the heads of tribal clans, as well as healers and shamans, who gained a reputation for having access to the subtle world of gods and spirits. The historical realities are such that over time, the continuity of the priesthood is fixed, up to the hereditary transfer of the title. Priest-kings are already appearing among the leaders. This is the source from which the phenomenon subsequently appeared the leader's messianism. A deep source from which Nerons, Robespierres, Napoleons, Trotskys, Lenins, Stalins, Hitlers appear.

Temple priesthood in Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Iran owned lands, slaves and huge wealth. In Judea VI-I centuries. BC e. the rule of the Jerusalem priesthood. In ancient India, the highest caste in society after the rulers were the Brahmin priests. In the most ancient civilizations of America - in Ancient Mexico and Peru, the priesthood also ruled over the souls of people. By the way: not so long ago, in Peru, archaeologists discovered a crypt in which a high priest who lived in the Mochica era (1800 years ago) was buried. A tomb with a wooden sarcophagus measuring 1 by 2.5 meters was discovered in the Chiclayo region in the north of the country, but the mummy itself was not there.

The successor of the priesthood in the world's leading religions - Christianity, Buddhism, Islam - was clergy. But, having adopted the experience of their predecessors, did the clergy receive the secret knowledge of the ancients? And what are the main secrets of the priesthood supposed to be?

According to the candidate of technical sciences, Major General of the Space Forces Konstantin Pavlovich Petrov, who wrote the book "The Secret of Mankind Control", the most important secret of the priests of Ancient Egypt is the substitution of concepts and the concealment of truth. As a result, instead of a mosaic worldview, people began to use a kaleidoscopic one. In fact, it looks like this. Let's say we have a certain number of squares from which you can make a complete picture (mosaic), or you can put the same number of composite particles into a kaleidoscope and twist it, expecting to see something whole. Those people who have kaleidoscopic world view(and their vast majority) see the world through such a pattern: a) everything happens by chance, 6) chaos is all around, c) there are no causal relationships in events. Whereas for those with mosaic worldview, everything is clear, because for them: a) the world is one and whole, b) everything is interdependent and interconnected, c) all processes and phenomena in the world are manageable.

This is a very simple way to represent the global processes taking place on our planet through concepts familiar to everyone. I confess that, as the author of this book, I am also trying to find the cause-and-effect relationships not only of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the emergence of Nazism, but also to understand what ideology is embedded in the Christian Book of Books, and why the most odious ruler of the 20th century tried to rewrite this Book, the postulates of which seem unshakable to all believers.

To reveal how thousands of years ago the mosaic worldview was replaced by a kaleidoscopic one, K. Petrov cites an example from the book of the outstanding Russian publicist of the early 20th century V. Shmakov “The Holy Book of Thoth. The Great Arcana of the Tarot. Having become acquainted with Shmakov’s conclusions, Petrov claims, “we learn that for the “especially initiated”, for the “chosen ones”, a different idea of ​​the universe was given three thousand years ago, and that this was first indicated in the Sefer Yetzirah (“The Book of Creation ”), which is an integral part of the Talmud. Simply put, the ancient priesthood was able to separate previously inseparable concepts and make a person think not in general, but in a separate way, operating not as a whole, but as a particular one. Thus began the control over the consciousness of people by the "chosen ones", the shepherds of human souls. It turns out like in a well-known fable, when instead of an elephant walking through the streets, the blind, who determine the beast by touch, see only its separate parts, and terribly scold, arguing what the outlandish beast is: either a snake-trunk, or a pillar-leg , or a dangling stump-tail, otherwise you still don’t understand what ...

Speaking of the same, Petrov draws the following conclusion: “But a person is so arranged that he can consider and operate with these “components” of the inseparable“ holy trinity ”each separately ... Using this feature of a person, MATTER was given to science, INFORMATION - to religion, and MERA was hidden from humanity. This was done in the deepest antiquity - in Ancient Egypt. And the ancient Egyptian priesthood did this, giving people a wrong idea about the world around them, spreading and maintaining a “kaleidoscope” in the heads of millions of people through a controlled education system for centuries. This concealment made it possible to manipulate the consciousness of each person individually and of all mankind as a whole for many centuries. The author continues: “The Qur'an reveals the essence of this deception: “And so we gave Musa (Moses) the scripture and discernment. Maybe you'll go the right way." This is how the Qur'an tells about what was given by God through Moses to the ancient Jews in order for them to bring to all mankind. The result is the same: it was hidden from mankind measure, thanks to which each person would easily separate lies from truth and would have the methodology of independent (not imposed) knowledge of the world. “A person is looking for truth where he can never find it, because it is simply not there. Man was given a choice of one lie out of two. This is what underlies the principle of "controlled conflict", the principle of "Divide and rule!" This is how materialism and idealism are opposed. And on all this Judaic foundation the world religions and beliefs are built. Parties and movements build their ideologies from the standpoint of these false philosophical teachings. Some are ready to give their lives "for the king" (Judeo-Christianity - based on idealism), others "for the Secretary General" (Judeo-communism - based on materialism). Neither “Jesus is risen!”, nor “Allah Akbar!”, nor the Jewish god of communism, Lenin, is wrong,” Konstantin Pavlovich assures categorically. Adding: "It is precisely the setting of such a false choice that lies in the opposition of religion and religion, science and religion."

So we came to understand that religion, and any religion, is in a certain sense a tool of control.

It turns out that for the beginning of the countdown of modern civilization, you need to take the time from which the substitution of concepts begins, or rather, the substitution of the vision of the world. Some researchers argue that “the beginning of modern civilization can be considered 12,000 BC. e. - from this point, many world religions count the mythological time (although in the Bible the time of creation of the world is considered to be 5500 BC). However, we are accustomed to live not even by the concept of 12,000 years, but by a much shorter time (a time in which there is clearly no measure)- from the birth of the Jewish baby Jesus, from the Nativity of Christ.

But what happened before that? Probably, after the Universal Catastrophe (presumably the displacement of the earth's axis by 180 degrees), as a result of which the developed proto-civilizations perished, the development of cultures began again on different continents; moreover, the process went on almost simultaneously and, most importantly, stemmed from the same root, from the same great-ancestors (maybe Atlanteans, maybe Aryans). The remains of ancient sciences, astronomical and mathematical discoveries were restored and preserved by the priests of Egypt, Babylon, Sumer, India, China, America, and the ancient Russian priesthood. By the way, if such a catastrophe took place, then it was possible that some part of intelligent humanity could be preserved in underground cities-cache. And this is consistent with the "Hollow Earth" hypothesis shared by the Nazis and believed in by Adolf Hitler. It is possible that an underground civilization exists to this day, and its representatives are fundamentally different from us, not only externally, but also significantly ahead of us in development. So it is possible to explain, say, the appearance and disappearance of strange aircraft, which we call UFOs, and it is simply impossible to deny the presence of which is already simply impossible due to the mass character of this strange phenomenon.

The identity of Aleister Crowley (real name Edward Alexander) is controversial. Who is he - a swindler who made thousands of people believe in his magical gift, or a mystic who unraveled the teachings of the Egyptian priests and learned the secrets of the Templars. Crowley himself called himself "the biggest sinner on earth."
In the last years of his life, he went bankrupt and fell into madness, the magician's last dying words were "I'm confused."

Aleister Crowley as an Egyptian priest
Crowley approached the mystical teachings with the thoroughness of a scientist, saying - if you liked a book, you need to read all the books indicated in the list of primary sources.
Crowley teetered on the verge of "good and evil" - nobility and vice. He talked about the wise teachings of the ancient Egyptian priests, and at the same time promoted a way of life far from noble ideals.

Outrageous and scandalous reputation created among many contemporaries the opinion that Crowley is a charlatan, profiting from simple-minded adherents.
“In the “creativity” of all magicians there is an ostentatious element, at the heart of the desire to create, among other things, lies the desire to impress other people. With Crowley, this desire so outweighed all other qualities that most of his contemporaries cast him out as a charlatan.- wrote K. Wilson.

Young Crowley
In private, Crowley was a pleasant and reliable man.

Crowley's contemporary Gerald Kelly said: “At the first time of our communication with him, he gave the impression of an extremely pleasant person. Crowley was outgoing, educated, cheerful and physically strong. He was not a gentleman. There was something vulgar about him. However, he was an excellent companion in any endeavor."

Writer Jean Overton recorded Neuburg's words about meeting Crowley: “He described Crowley to me in simple terms as he had seen him in his youth: his appearance, his walk and manner, majestic and leonine, his features, his broad forehead. "I thought he was a nobleman," said Neuburg, "I suppose you would think the same."

The future magician was brought up in a Protestant family of religious fanatics. At first, an obsessive religious upbringing made Crowley a materialist who denied the supernatural. However, he changed his mind.

Crowley had his first mystical experience in 1896 at the age of 21.
“I woke up and found out that I have the magical ability to understand myself and match the part of me that is hidden in me. I experienced fear, pain and mental numbness, and at the same time it was still the key to the purest and most sacred spiritual ecstasy ever experienced before.
The city where Crowley discovered his magical abilities was Stockholm.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, for "enlightenment" Crowley did not refuse the use of narcotic substances, fashionable among modern bohemians. Crowley even wrote a book, Notes of an Addict.

Crowley and Ancient Egypt
Crowley's famous work "The Book of the Law" was written in Egypt in 1904, the author is 29 years old. Crowley recounted how his wife Rose took him to the museum to see the image of the god Horus on the tombstone of the priest Ankh-ef-ne-Khonsu. According to Crowley, Aiwass, the messenger of Horus, dictated to him the secrets of the ancient priests. The book was published only a few years later, in 1912.

The Stele of Revelation where the Messenger of Horus appeared to Crowley
In The Book of the Law, Crowley wrote: “Do what you want - this will be the Law. Love is the Law, Love obedient to the Will. Every man and every woman is a star."

“Let the majority sit in chains and abomination. Let them disappear. You have no other right than to do what you want yourself.
Do this and no one will dare to tell you no.
For pure will, free from goal-setting, independent of the thirst for results, is perfect in all respects. Perfection and Perfection - one Perfection and not two. No, they are nothing!

The "Book of Laws" is difficult to understand for an ordinary person, the meaning of the text can only be revealed to an initiated magical seeker.

Crowley with wife Rose and youngest daughter Lola Zaza. The couple's eldest daughter died at the age of two. The magician's marriage soon fell apart
Crowley singled out Egyptian mysticism among others:
“The Egyptian gods are so complete in nature, so perfect spiritually and materially, that a single invocation is enough. God remembers that the spirit of Mercury should appear to the magician (note the Greek version of the Egyptian Thoth - the personification of wisdom); and he really appears to him.

The formula of this invocation to Thoth can also be classified on the basis of the Tetragrammaton. The first part is fire, that is, the earnest prayer of the magician; the second is water: the magician listens and catches the reflection of the god. The third part - air - represents the marriage of fire and water: god and man become one. The fourth part corresponds to the earth, where the condensation or materialization of the three higher principles takes place.

Title page of the "Book of Knowledge"
Another famous work of Crowley is The Book of Thoth, in which he gives his detailed explanations of the Tarot cards, which were considered the message of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom. According to legend, 171 years after the flood, 17 priests led by Hermes Trismegistus (presumably Thoth himself appeared in his guise) engraved drawings on gold plates. For me, as a supporter of the theory of pracivilization, this legend is especially interesting.

Crowley created the Tarot of Thoth in the last years of his life with the artist Frieda Harris (née Bloxam).

In commenting on the interpretation of the cards of Thoth, Crowley often refers to the philosophy of the ancient Egyptians. For example, the card "Regulation" (justice), balance - the harmony of the world order was the basis of the Egyptian religion.

Card "Regulation" (Justice)
“We see a young, slender woman balancing on her toes. She is crowned with the ostrich feathers of Maat, the Egyptian goddess of Justice, and on her forehead is the serpent Uraeus, Lord of Life and Death. She is wearing a mask, and the expression on her face shows a secret inner satisfaction with her dominance over any element of disequilibrium in the Universe. This state is symbolized by the Magic Sword, which she holds with two hands, and by the scales in which she weighs the Universe in spherical bowls: the Alpha Beginning is completely balanced by the Omega End.

... The female figure balances in front of a throne made up of balls and pyramids (their number is four, which symbolizes Law and Restriction), which maintain the same impartiality as herself, but on a completely impersonal plane. They form the framework within which all actions take place. Beyond them, in the corners of the map, spheres of light and darkness balancing each other are depicted, and the rays emanating from these spheres form a curtain; it is the interaction of all those forces that the Regulation sums up and about which it decides. One should dive deeper into philosophy; this Trump represents the Satisfied Woman. Equilibrium is incompatible with any individual prejudice; therefore, in France, this card should be called justesse (that is, "accuracy, accuracy", in contrast to the traditional French name "justise" - "justice".). Nature is meticulously precise. You can't drop a pin without triggering a corresponding reaction on each star. Even such an action disturbs the balance of the universe...

... She is that ultimate illusion that is manifestation; she is the many-coloured, many-cunning dance of Life itself. In the constant whirling of the phantom representation of Space and Time, all possibilities are realized: all things are real on the surface of the soul, since they are instantly compensated by this Regulation. All things are harmony and beauty; all things are Truth, because they count against one another. She is the goddess Maat...

… On her nemiss (a traditional Egyptian headdress used in ceremonial magic) she wears the ostrich feathers of the Dual Truth. From this crown, so delicate that the slightest breath of thought inevitably makes it sway, on the chains of Cause descend the Scales, on which the Alpha Beginning is ideally balanced by the Omega End...

... She is shrouded in a veil of mystery, even more mysterious thanks to transparency; she is a Sphinx without a riddle, because she is all pure calculation. In Eastern philosophy, it is called Karma. Her attributes confirm this thesis. Venus rules the sign of Balance, thus demonstrating the formula "Love is the law, love according to will." Saturn first of all represents the element of Time, without which regulation is impossible, for every action takes place in time. And since time itself is only a condition of phenomena, all phenomena are invalid, for they are uncompensated. Satisfied woman. Covered with brightly shameless dancing wings, her hands are visible; they grip the hilt of the phallic sword of the magicians. She holds the blade between her thighs. This is also the hieroglyph "Love is the law, love according to the will." Each form of energy, in order to fully satisfy its destiny, must be directed and holistically applied.

On the map "Moon" there is an image of Anubis - a guide to the world of the dead among the ancient Egyptians. And the description of the map reflects the impression of "another world" from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Map "Moon"
“... On the hills there are black towers of nameless mystery, fear and horror. All prejudices, dead traditions and hereditary aversions combine to eclipse her face before the eyes of people. It takes invincible courage to tread this path. Life here is incomprehensible and deceptive. The fiery feeling encounters an obstacle. The moon has no air. The knight in his search is forced to rely on the three lower senses: touch, taste and smell. The kind of light that is possible here is deadlier than darkness, and the howl of a wild beast hurts the silence.

To which god do we call for help? This is Anubis, guardian of the twilight, the god on the threshold, the jackal-god Hem, in his dual form, standing between the Paths. At his feet, on the alert, the jackals themselves are waiting, ready to devour the carcasses of those who did not see Him or did not know His Name.

This is the threshold of life; this is the threshold of death. Everything is doubtful, everything is mysterious, everything is intoxicating. This is not the beneficent, sunny intoxication of Dionysus, but the terrible madness of pernicious drugs; the intoxication of the senses after the mind has been abolished by the poison of this Moon. This is what is written about Abraham in the "Book of the Beginning" ("The Book of the Beginning" - this is how the Jews call the "Book of Genesis".): "Terror and great darkness attacked him." We are reminded of the mental echo of the unconscious realization, of that supreme injustice which the mystics have continually glorified in their tales of the Dark Night of the Soul. But the best people, real people, never talk about it in such terms. Whatever horrors may torment the soul, whatever abominations may turn away the heart, whatever fears may attack the mind, the answer is the same at every stage: “How magnificent this Adventure is!”


Crowley in the glory years
Crowley was pleased with the artist's drawings: “She put her genius into this Work. She quickly got into a rhythm and with inexhaustible patience took all the instructions of her fanatical overseer, often reworking the same card up to eight times, until it came to an exact match with his vanadium standard! Let the passionate "love in accordance with the will", which she has invested in this treasury of Truth and Beauty, pour out from the Splendor and Power of her work, illuminating the world; May this Tarot serve as a card to the brave seafarers of the New Aeon that will lead them through the Great Sea of ​​Understanding to the City of the Pyramids!

Frieda Harris, who drew cards for the Tarot of Thoth

Crowley wrote to his publisher: “It seems to be important that you understand what I am guided by. For me, this Work, this Tarot that I am working on, is an encyclopedia of all serious “occult” philosophy. This is the standard reference manual by which the whole course of mystical and magical thought will be determined over the next two thousand years. My only concern is to protect it from the danger of destruction, and for this it is necessary to reproduce and multiply it in a standard form and distribute it as widely as possible. I'm not looking for financial gain; if I had capital in this country, I myself would send 200 (say) copies to state libraries in all parts of the world and the same number to my main representatives.

The first edition of the cards came out in 1944 and amounted to 200 copies. At first, Crowley's cards were printed in only one blue color and received the name - "One-color Tarot of the Holy Grail." The Book of Thoth was also published in 1944 under the pseudonym "Master Therion".

A full-color edition of the maps appeared twenty years after Crowley's death, in 1968.

Sage Thoth on an ancient Egyptian papyrus
Frankly, I did not have a desire to make a layout of such cards and magic books are difficult for my philistine mind. I will confine myself to a theory that brings us back to Ancient Egypt and other ancient sources - pra-civilization.

There are many more interesting things to tell about Crowley, for example, his cooperation with secret orders and rumors about the service to Hitler.

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